Idriss Déby

Idriss Déby in the White House (2014)

Idriss Déby [ iˈdʀis deˈbi ] ( Arabic إدريس ديبي إتنو, DMG Idrīs Daibī Itnū , born June 18, 1952 in Fada , French Equatorial Africa ; †  April 20, 2021 in N'Djamena ) was President of Chad from 1990 to 2021 and chairman of the Patriotic Welfare Movement (also called "Patriotic Salvation Movement", in French Mouvement Patriotique du Salut - MPS ). He belonged to the Zaghawa ethnic group .

Life

After attending the officers' school in the capital, N'Djamena , the son of a Muslim shepherd continued his training in France , where he completed his training as a fighter pilot in 1976 . There he got the nickname "Desert Cowboy". He is also a graduate of Muammar al-Gaddafi's World Revolutionary Center .

Déby began his career as a commander in the first civil war in his home country. As security advisor to the dictator Hissène Habré , he gained a controversial reputation for brutally breaking up rebel groups. On April 1, 1989, Habré accused him and other ethnic Zaghawa of wanting to carry out a coup. Hundreds of Zaghawa were imprisoned and tortured, and dozen died. Déby was able to flee to Sudan , where he built up a new rebel army within a few weeks.

On December 2, 1990, his troops marched unhindered into N'Djamena. After a three-month transitional government, a constitution for Chad with a multi-party system and Déby as president was approved on February 28, 1991 . Déby was re-elected in 1996, 2001 and 2006, but international observers found irregularities in the electoral process. He used the time up to the first election in 1996 to expand his influence, that of his party and his Bidayat tribe, who are counted among the Zaghawa. In 2004, he had the National Assembly, in which the MPS held 108 of the 155 mandates, lift the constitutional limitation of two terms in order to be able to run again in 2006. In a referendum in June 2005, this constitutional amendment was approved by 77% of the electorate. The presidential elections on May 3, 2006 were boycotted by the opposition except for one candidate from a socialist splinter party and three candidates from the government camp. According to official information, Déby received 64.7% of the votes cast with 53.1% voter turnout.

After Laurent-Désiré Kabila came to power in the DR Congo , Déby sent 2,000 soldiers to the DRC to assist the government in the Second Congo War against the rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda . In 2003, Chadian soldiers supported François Bozizé's coup in the neighboring Central African Republic . Déby, who is considered a brilliant strategist, asserts himself in a political balancing act between the People's Republic of China and the United States and between Sudan and Libya .

In the spring of 2006, 500 rebel fighters from the Front for Change (FUC) marched into the capital, N'Djamena. While international newspaper commentators were already calling for the end of the Déby regime, it became clear that the Chadian army had awaited the rebels and had lured them into a trap. French Air Force jets stationed in Chad had carried out aerial reconnaissance for the government. The offensive of the government army against two rebel movements at the end of 2007, which was initially successful and was accompanied by high losses on both sides, allegedly led Déby personally. At the beginning of February 2008, the rebels armed by Sudan again penetrated the capital, which they took almost completely after breaking through the defensive ring of the government troops. Déby was stuck in his presidential palace but turned down France's offer to fly him on the grounds that he was in charge of the defense. Thanks to the use of attack helicopters and thanks to Libyan ammunition deliveries, the rebels were driven out of the capital and the civil war ended in 2010.

To support Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi against the Libyan popular uprising in February 2011, Idriss Déby sent Chadian guards to Libya. Idriss Déby said that al-Qaeda had seized all weapons during the looting of Libyan armories , "including anti-aircraft missiles that were smuggled into their places of refuge".

On January 30, 2016, Déby was elected President of the African Union for one year .

On April 30, 2018, in a vote in parliament boycotted by the opposition, the constitution was changed to the effect that a purely presidential system without a head of government was introduced and the rules governing the term of office of the president were changed. Three days later, just before the change came into effect, the entire government of Chad resigned. On May 7, 2018, Déby appointed a new 29-member government.

Presidential elections were held in Chad on April 11, 2021, which Déby won with 79.3% of the vote. Most of the opposition forces boycotted the election. This was followed by a riot in the north of the country after security forces were accused of violating protests.

On April 20, 2021, Déby succumbed to injuries sustained from combat operations while visiting troops on the front line in northern Chad. According to his campaign manager, the opponents who invaded Chad from Libya were fighters from the Front pour l'Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (FACT). His son Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno was appointed head of the military interim government.

family

Déby was married several times and had at least 12 children. On the morning of July 2, 2007, Déby's son Brahim was found dead by the caretaker in the underground car park of his apartment building in a Paris suburb. The French investigators did not assume a political assassination attempt . In 2009, several suspects were charged. Four of the defendants were sentenced to between five and thirteen years in prison in 2011, but the public prosecutor appealed the verdict. In 2013, the last instance increased the sentences against most of the members of the murder plot. The organization's thought leader Dan Batoua has had his sentence increased from 13 to 15 years. Marin Cioroianu was sentenced to another year in prison (13 years instead of 12 years in the first instance). The same goes for Pierre-Claude Messi Ntsama, who was sentenced to six years in prison on appeal, versus five in the first instance. The first instance acquitted Najèbe Oulmoudène was sentenced to nine years in prison by the Versailles Court of Appeal. Jaime de Carvalho is the only defendant whose sentence was reduced on appeal (from 13 to 9 years) because, unlike the co-defendants, he had worked with investigators.

literature

• Barry Turner (Ed.): The Statesman's Yearbook 2012. The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World. 148th edition. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2011, ISBN 978-0-230-24802-1 .

Web links

Commons : Idriss Déby  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-chad-deby/chad-leader-deby-key-western-ally-killed-in-battle-idUSKBN2C71CB
2. ^ French charges over Deby killing , BBC News , November 29, 2008.
3. ↑ Douglas Farah: Harvard for Tyrants . The Foreign Policy.
4. ↑ Henning Lohse: Chad: Civil war claims thousands of lives. In: welt.de . February 4, 2008, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Le Figaro: La garde tchadienne au secours du colonel Kadhafi February 24, 2011 (French)
6. ↑ Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links March 25, 2011, The Telegraph (English)
7. ↑ 26th AU Summit opens in Addis Ababa; Chad's president Idriss Déby new chairman , Africanews.com, January 30, 2016, accessed February 11, 2016
8. ↑ Idriss Déby: Government in Chad resigns after constitutional amendment. In: Zeit Online. May 4, 2018, Retrieved May 4, 2018 . 
9. ↑ [1]
10. ↑ Chad President Idriss Deby has died: Army spokesman. In: Aljazeera. April 20, 2021, accessed April 20, 2021 . 
11. ^ Mahamat Adamou, Ruth Maclean: President of Chad Is Killed as Soldiers Clash With Rebels. In: nytimes.com, April 20, 2021, accessed the same day.
12. ↑ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56815708
13. ↑ Son of Chad's President Deby killed - Tagesspiegel from July 2, 2007
14. ↑ French charges over Deby killing , BBC News November 29, 2008.
15. ↑ https://www.france24.com/fr/20130107-france-nouveau-proces-meurtre-petit-president-tchadien-tribunal-versailles-brahim-deby
16. ↑ L'affaire Brahim Déby. In: Grands Avocats. Retrieved April 20, 2021 (fr-fr).